A History Lesson part 4

King Paul’s temple had no priestess, which was rare but not unheard of, particularly at that time and place. He would often write a priestess in Atlanta who was Iconoclast-adjacent. Queen Magdalene had been trained as a priestess when she was young, but there were no direct followers where she lived and had been hoping to start a temple. Paul wrote a letter explaining the situation in Winghaven and when she finished reading, she laid the paper down and muttered, “Damn fool.”

It was 5 o’clock in the evening when King Paul and his congregation met in the town square outside The Duke. Normally, Spider Jones would open business around that time so he was sure Spider and his men would be present. They ventured outside the ice cream parlor and lined up in the street. On the opposite side, Paul and his healthiest men stood with yatagans (Haitian swords) and machetes. People walking along the sidewalk quickly turned in the opposite direction and left the area as quickly as they could. Cars stopped in the street and slowly backed up. In the nearby shops, people closed the blinds and locked the doors. The police were called but they had already been paid off or intimidated by Spider’s men. The two groups faced off silently; the sun was setting, casting an orange glow on the surroundings.

“Week’s up,” Paul announced, “Need help moving outta town?”

Spider Jones scoffed as he gazed at the curved swords in their hands, “Swords, huh? Ain’t the Reformers the ones supposed to be dangerous?”

“We don’t wanna have to use `em.”

“See, that’s the rub, `cus I’m all set for using this,” with a flick of his wrist, a switchblade snapped open in Spider’s hand, the sun glinting off the short but sharpened blade, “Now, no more flapp’n gums.”

Spider’s men were the first to make a move. Knowing the Iconoclasts’ rejection of technology, they didn’t bother bringing their guns. Instead, they brought switchblades and blackjacks. Once they raced into the street, the Iconoclasts followed suit. Their swords and machetes found their ways into limbs and across skulls, spilling blood instantly. Some of the Reformers ducked around the larger blades, coming in close to deliver multiple stabs. More blood began to spill.

King Paul summoned an animalistic spell and an image of an elk flashed over him. His speed and strength magnified by several magnitudes and he rushed toward Spider, his blade at the ready.

Madame Islande suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision. It was apparent she had been there all along, choosing to remain invisible until the right moment. She raised a hand and one of Spider’s larger enforcers was thrown into the path of the attack, taking a sword through the abdomen in the process. The tip of the blade burst out the man’s back and in his dying moments, he held on to Paul. Paul lost his sword and had to push the dying man off him, which afforded Spider the opportunity to strike. The switchblade found its way into the side of Paul’s neck, releasing a stream of blood. In retaliation, Paul threw his hand out and a strange dust cloud exploded in the air. “Goddamn!,” Spider shouted as he blindly shrank back, “Goddamn!” His vision now gone, he fell against the hood of his parked car. Meanwhile, blood ran down Paul’s torso; he tried to press his palm against the wound to help stop the bleeding but the wound was far too deep. He collapsed on the asphalt a moment later.

One of the young men with King Paul was Jimmy DuBois, a young African American man who had apparently become increasingly resentful of the Reformers. The Iconoclasts weren’t aware of it at the time, but he had a gun hidden in the breast of his coat.

****

As Alysa Saraki read the chapter, she noticed the familiar name as he was often blamed as the instigator of this altercation by the elders in her temple (and often with Spider’s involvement being downplayed and his criminal enterprise largely ignored). She knew that he was the one who pulled the gun, but she had never read any first-hand accounts. She never knew that the gun was in response to Spider stabbing his leader.

****

Jimmy’s hands were shaky as he took aim at the now-blinded Spider Jones. Just as he pulled the trigger, one of the Reformers struck him in the back of the head with a blackjack. A single bullet was clumsily fired and it passed Spider’s head by three inches and found its way into a nearby drug store. A woman who had found refuge in the store was killed almost instantly. Outside, Jimmy fell to the ground and the Reformer began kicking him savagely.

Two of the Iconoclasts carried Paul away from the area as he struggled to breathe. At the same time, Madame Islande helped Spider into the backseat of his car while another Reformer leapt into the driver’s seat. An Iconoclast rushed to help Jimmy DuBois, slashing at the attacking Reformer. The machete slid along the man’s midsection and some intestines spilled out before the Reformer fell onto his back. The remaining Iconoclasts grabbed Jimmy and they all fled the area. Meanwhile, Spider’s car sped away and as it did so, the wheels rolled over dead Iseda followers indiscriminately, leaving red tire streaks on the asphalt. Photos of the aftermath would be published in newspapers across multiple states.

In the years to come, the story turned into rumor and then legend with various accounts either exaggerating the mayhem or downplaying it, particularly when it came to the mystical elements. Shortly after the massacre, Jimmy DuBois was picked up by police for the death of the woman in the drug store. He was eventually tried and found guilty, spending the rest of his days in prison. The Iconoclasts became even more adamant against gun ownership because of that and doubled down on their anti-technology stance all together as they saw it as a symbol of corruption. They also refused to have any sort of identification with the government from that day forward so that they couldn’t be tracked down and arrested. This, naturally, made them appear more suspicious to the outside world.

As for Spider Jones, he knew that the situation was too big to bribe local cops so he escaped to Mississippi. As expected, the Bureau of Investigation became involved due to what they considered “gang warfare”. Bureau agents kicked in the door of The Duke days after the incident and worked their way across state lines to halt any more bootlegging. Within a week, Spider’s entire operation was gone.

A few years later, Spider Jones was seen in a club in Biloxi where he watched Billie Brown perform. A woman fitting the description of Queen Magdalene approached, wearing a raggedy dress and unkempt hair. Magdalene had disappeared shortly after King Paul’s death, so it was possible that she had gone underground and decided to take revenge.

According to witnesses, Spider Jones scoffed at the disheveled looking woman and was heard saying, “Ey, whose bitch is this?” She immediately slapped the drink out of Spider’s hand, covering his face and suit in alcohol. Spider leapt to his feet in a fit of rage and raised a hand but before he could do anything else a single flame shot out of the strange woman’s palm. Considering he was already dripping with alcohol, Spider went up like a firework and it caused a panicked stampede out of the club. If the culprit wasn’t Queen Magdalene, it was still clearly an Iconoclast or an ally of King Paul.

As for Madame Islande, she had fled to the Louisiana bayou where she reportedly lived in an old shack, nearly an urban legend to local residents; Queen Magdalene was once again sighted asking questions about her whereabouts in the area. The shriveled old crone was known to bathe in a nearby river so finding her wasn’t impossible. One day, Madame Islande sat soaking at the bank, the water coming up all the way to her neck as she rested against a log. She had let her guard down, certain the authorities wouldn’t waste too much energy trying to find her when there were worse offenders in the area. She didn’t account for a vengeful priestess, however. A hand descended from nowhere and plunged her head beneath the surface. She tried to break free but the old woman wasn’t nearly strong enough. Her death didn’t come from drowning, however. It came when the water began to boil. When Madame Islande’s body was found, her face had been completely removed from its skull.

It was quickly believed these deaths were revenge killings by Iconoclasts and in one of the very few public statements from that sect, a woman claiming to be a Queen Magdalene wrote in to a newspaper to declare war against the Reformers and took credit for both killings. If this mysterious woman was Magdalene, it was certain that the fight in Winghaven had radicalized her. In 1935, J Edgar Hoover declared the entire Iseda religion to be a criminal organization in America.

Franklin Carr and Ginny Devereux were Reformer scholars who were trying to start the American Iseda Association around this time, ironically working within the community Queen Magdalene had been cultivating for years. They were concerned about public perception of the religion and Hoover’s campaign against them, so they wanted to bring about change. They began charity events and petitioned Hoover himself to help the FBI investigate criminal activity within the Iseda religion. Carr and Devereux both admired Queen Obeah and in their memoirs, admonished Spider Jones, but when it came time to assist the FBI, they often weeded out Iconoclasts while doing little to point the authorities in the direction of any Reformers (another fact Alysa wasn’t aware of). They wanted to set up the AIA and the Reformer sect was far more likely to give funding and work within American systems. The Iconoclasts were made into scapegoats and a sect that had already removed itself from modern society was made out to be dangerous terrorists.

The FBI was quick to label the Iconoclast sect as “Satanists and Communists” and stalked many places of worship. Alysa was surprised to learn of an declassified FBI case that had never been brought to her attention previously. Carr and Devereux were made aware of an Iconoclast encampment in the Appalachian Mountains after an Iseda follower converted between the two sects. There didn’t appear to be any criminal elements associated with the camp but Carr and Devereux reported it to the FBI and they investigated all the same. According to the FBI’s reports, agents secretly monitored the camp for a number of days until a day when Iconoclasts seemingly became aware of their location and charged up the mountain to attack, forcing the officers to open fire. Five members were killed and the rest were forced to flee the area. According to one Iconoclast survivor, the camp was holding a ritual and were singing and dancing when the FBI ambushed them unexpectedly. Whatever the truth was, this situation led many Iconoclasts to escape West. It was Queen Magdalene’s idea to hide somewhere in the Nevada desert where, it was believed, they continued to mostly reside. In the coming decades, resentment toward the Reformers only grew and many priests and priestesses took it upon themselves to formulate attacks against Reformers or Society in general. The members striving for peace or reconciliation were often shouted down or bullied into submission. Anger grew.

In time, the Reformers were hailed as heroes and public perception quickly shifted. What criminal activity was left in that sect was quietly pushed out of the temples or browbeaten into submission. Within a single generation, they were clean.

That was how the Reformer sect turned into the good guys.

Continued…